How to organize your job search

 

Just as we need to be organized at work, we should treat our job search just as serious. We’ve all heard the phrase that a job search is itself, a job too. So treat it like one. I recently stumbled across a great blog titled EmploymentDigest.net , that provides great advice on how to keep your job search organized. Plus, if you’re receiving unemployment like me, this helps track your job applications, if the state comes calling asking for proof of your job search activity.

The blog’s article “Job hunting? Get yourself organized,” suggests creating and maintaining an Excel spreadsheet to track all of your job search activity. I couldn’t agree more. If I was in the beginning of my job search, I’d most definitely do this, however I feel I’m pretty close to getting an offer. But to all you in the midst of your job search, open up Excel and put your fingers to work ASAP. There couldn’t be any better advice. The blog post lays out several reasons why this helps.

1)Keeps you on top of what positions and with what companies you’ve applied. This way you don’t criss-cross jobs and apply more than once. That doesn’t look so good.

2)The spreadsheet is a central location to save all the pertinent contact info for each job you applied for. This way you know exactly where to go to find contact info to do your follow-ups. This is much easier than searching through your emails to find everything.

3)You know what dates you apply for each job. This looks impressive if/when you get calls from the recruiters or hiring managers. If they ask when you applied, you can reference your spreadsheet to find the exact date versus saying “I believe a few weeks ago.”

And guess what, I did a search online and I found someone who was gracious enough to share the spreadsheet template they created to track their job search activity. Download the job search spreadsheet here. You may want to revise it to match your liking. But at least part of the work is done for you.